A would-be paedophile who travelled from Bradford to Huddersfield Railway Station to meet up with who he thought was a 13-year-old girl will be back on the streets after being given a three-year community order.

Roofer Ian Kershaw, 52, thought he had been contacting a teenager via a social media site, but when he turned up at the railway station in January he was confronted by members of the Parents Against Paedophiles group.

Huddersfield Railway Station.

Prosecutor Nicholas Askins told Bradford Crown Court that one of the group had used a photograph of herself as a teenager on the social media profile and Kershaw was told the child was only 13.

The court heard that Kershaw, of Odsal Road, Bradford, asked the child if she had had sex yet and during other sexually explicit messages he asked if she wanted him to give her “sex lessons.”

Mr Askins said the group members effectively made a citizens arrest at the station and the police were called.

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Kershaw claimed that he had been planning to tell the girl to go home, but at a previous court hearing he pleaded guilty to charges of attempting to meet a child after sexual grooming and attempting to cause or incite a child to engage in sexual activity.

The court heard that Kershaw was remanded in custody in February after further allegations were made against him, but those other charges were dropped today.

Barrister Rodney Ferm, for Kershaw, described him as an isolated man who suffered from ‘tremors’ following a road accident when he was 15.

Bradford Crown Court

“If the intention of a (prison) sentence which was immediate was to bring home to him the severity and seriousness of the activity that he was engaged in then it could be said that the same lesson has already been inflicted,” submitted Mr Ferm.

The court heard that Kershaw had spent over four months on remand and Mr Ferm argued that the time had come for positive rehabilitative measures.

Imposing the three-year community order, which includes participation in an accredited sex offender treatment programme, Judge David Hatton QC pointed out that Kershaw had in fact been attempting to do the impossible because the 13-year-old girl did not exist.

“What is however troublesome is that you sought to contact and meet a person who you erroneously believed existed and who you erroneously believed was a child,” the judge told Kershaw.

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“That’s troublesome and is something that needs addressing and something which, from what I have read, is capable of being addressed.

“I do not consider that a sentence of imprisonment is in fact warranted or justified in the circumstances of this case. What is more important is addressing the need that you felt for behaving in this way.”

Kershaw will now have to register as a sex offender with the police for the next five years and he must also comply with a sexual harm prevention order.